


Dear Reg

by greerwatson



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: Epistolary, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 17:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3659667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greerwatson/pseuds/greerwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Me better half's gone off the rails, that's all."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Reg

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havisham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/gifts).



> In Chapter Three, Reg receives a letter from his father that contains unwelcome news.

L.Cpl. Reginald Barker                         
 c/o Emergency Medical Services Hospital  
in Winton village, Somerset                
 (near Bridstow)                                  

Dear Reg,

          I imagine you’ll be surprised to get a letter from me, given that I’m no hand at writing, but I reckon I got to take pen in hand and tell you this, though I’m sure you won’t be pleased to hear it no more than I am to have to write about it. Anyrate someone has to and it’s pretty clear no one else won’t for they’re that embarassed just with the whole ~~sitau~~ situation the way it’s going.  
          But before I get to that I should say that we’re all well here barring the obvious. Jerry come over a few times but no one in our street got hit though the pub down Greeley Road that was the old King’s Head got flattened and serve them right I dare say for changing the name. At least it weren’t in drinking hours and no one hurt since they was down the shelter. We was there ourselves that raid, I don’t reckon much to the Anderson.  
          Your boy is all right last I saw him. He give me cheek in a way he didn’t used to and then ran off which I reckon is probably down to the whole business that I got to tell you. Which must be hard on him more than any of us particularly at school. Still if there’s a bright side to look on, you got to reckon that at least he’s getting enough food. For cooks don’t starve as they say, and that goes for butchers and bakers too.  
          If you was here it’d be different, of course. She’d not have done it then, not with her own man about, but there you are. You’re in the army and that’s all there is to it. I got to say though, for a man doing his duty by God and King and Country it’s a hard row to hoe and not the homecoming you were expecting that’s obvious. Not that you’re home yet of course, but you will be I reckon from what you said in your last letter, and all I can say is lucky it weren’t your right arm to be stiff, at least you’re not left-handed like some. Any road, there will be plenty of work even for a man with a bad arm given so many boys have gone to the war.  
          As for your wife, well I won’t say we all wish now more than ever that you had married Irene, though we do. For there’s no help for it, you being tied to Madge and all, and the boy and that. Still you got to make the best of it, and plenty of men came home to that and worse in the last one. Not that I did, your mother was salt of the earth and true through and through as you know.  
          It’s hard for us right now mind, all of this as if the rationing isn’t hard enough, though your sis has always been good with the housekeeping and manages. But standing in line for hours is playing gyp with her pegs and now there is this. Its hard going round the pub with all knowing and Len feels the same, but worse for her with all the gossips on the street rabbiting on about it the way women do.  
          Worst of all is getting our fish and chips, he’s always had the best you know, even now with the war and all. Means we buy at Sheppers now, and nothing like the same. Of course, it’d be worse if he was a butcher and signed on to him as we always went there and now theres no changing it, not without a fuss and having to explain our private business to a load of uniforms and then forms to fill out and like as not being told no go anyway, so your sis has to line up for our bacon and mince same as always knowing back of the store your Madge is cooking his dinner. But not that, thank God. Bad enough as it is given she's moved in with him, but at least we don't have to go round that way.  
          Still it’s hardest on your boy there’s no saying otherwise. I wish Madge hadn’t sent for him home when the war started so quiet and all. If he was still down in the country it wouldn’t matter all this. As it is, half his friends are still billetted and the school used for people who been bombed out. There’s some classes running and teachers for them, but the other lads do get at him, I’m sure. And no use saying they’re too young to understand, for they are but their mothers aren’t, and they hear a lot even if they miss just as much.  
          Not that anyone is talking to Madge right now. Truth is, they can give us men guns and teach us to point and shoot, but it’s the women have the cruelest ammo and don’t you forget it.  
          Now, I hear you say well Madge still has her own family, and that’s right enough in a way, but her Mum had a go at her too, she did. It’s just as much a disgrace for them as it is for us, more if you ask me. As for Irene, they called her up for war work and she’s half the country away barracked with a load of other girls in a hotel somewhere working at a ~~munni~~ munitions factory, and we can just all hope that this one doesn’t blow itself up like that one in the last war. She writes about as often as you’d expect. Would have been different if she’d married, of course. At least you neednt worry about Madge that route, and your boy is well taken care of, I’m sure, barring the pointing and staring. But the other thing is topsy turvy and you’ll have a sorry homecoming and no arguing.  
          I’m advising you here, son, and mind you pay attention for it’s your dad talking and you’ll get the back of my hand if you do something silly. You’re in the army now and they don’t hold with shenannigans. You’re no good to man nor beast if your doing jankers. What’s done is done, and no help for it. So if your arm don’t heal up all the way, same as you think it won't, then they’ll be letting you out. And  that’s when you come home and sort it. Use your loaf, son. You’ll see to it all the faster if you don’t go off half-cocked. Meanwhile, just you soldier on and put the best face on it.

                                                                                                                        Best wishes,

                                                                                                                            Dad

**Author's Note:**

> In 1940, Renault was a nurse at the Winford Emergency Hospital, in the village of Winford, about eight miles south of Bristol in the Chew Valley of Somerset. 
> 
> You should take this letter to have been written in a fair copperplate, as was uniformly taught to all students in the late nineteenth century. The spelling is far better than you might expect, since it was drilled in. Grammar was also taught; but it's much harder to alter, and it's not as though Reg's father was any more inclined to book-learning than his son.
> 
> Reg's father is not misspelling Ireen's name. Rather, Renault spelled it that way to indicate to the reader that it was the non-U two-syllable pronunciation. However Madge's sister _actually_ spelt it, it's highly unlikely that Reg's Dad ever saw her ration books or any of her identity documents. So I've had him spell the name "Irene" in the usual way, since he might well have learned it that way at school.


End file.
